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Cornerstone Spendthrift Farm Sire Malibu Moon Dies At Age 24

Malibu Moon, the foundation sire of B. Wayne Hughes' Spendthrift Farm, died suddenly on Tuesday in his paddock of an apparent heart attack. The distinguished son of A.P. Indy was 24.

“He started Spendthrift for us,” said Hughes, founder of the modern-era Spendthrift. “Without Malibu Moon, we are not where we are today. It takes a special horse, and he was just that. This is a sad day.”

A perennial leading sire in North America, Malibu Moon has been a staple of the Thoroughbred industry for the better part of this century, significantly influencing the breed through his sons and daughters on both the racetrack and in the breeding shed.

Malibu Moon has sired 126 black type winners and 51 graded winners – including 17 Grade 1 winners – to date. His progeny are led by 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb, 2004 Champion 2-Year-Old Declan's Moon, and Grade 1-winning millionaires over the last dozen years that include Gormley, Magnum Moon, Life At Ten, Carina Mia and Come Dancing.

“It's a sad day for us. This is our first loss of this kind. It's tough,” said Spendthrift owner and president, Eric Gustavson. “You really develop a love for these beautiful, majestic animals. Even with Into Mischief taking over the mantle as 'top stallion' at the farm, Malibu Moon has always been 'the man' among our stallions. It can't be overstated how important he has been to the development of our farm. To say he will be missed just doesn't cover it. It's hard to imagine Spendthrift Farm without Malibu Moon.”

Malibu Moon's 17 Grade 1 winners all came on dirt, representing the second most by a modern-day sire on that surface only to Tapit. Malibu Moon perhaps made his greatest impact on the Kentucky Derby trail, siring winners of the Kentucky Derby (Orb), Florida Derby (Orb), Santa Anita Derby (Gormley), and Arkansas Derby (Magnum Moon), among other key “prep” races.

He has also been a highly influential broodmare sire in recent years, with his daughters producing the likes of champion Stellar Wind, Grade 1 winners Girvin, By the Moon, Bellafina and recent Preakness runner-up Midnight Bourbon, among others.

Malibu Moon was owned by Spendthrift, Castleton Lyons and Country Life Farm.

“Malibu Moon did so many things for so many people,” said Ned Toffey, Spendthrift general manager. “Our partners, Castleton Lyons and the Pons family, were so instrumental in helping develop his career and he rewarded them, and us, handsomely for it. He has truly been the horse of a lifetime.”

Country Life Farm's Josh Pons added: “Malibu Moon was a friend. He had a special presence and was such a playful horse. When I would come visit him at Spendthrift, he always recognized me and my voice. Malibu Moon improved the lives of all the people he touched. He paid tuitions for the next generations of Pons family – he put five kids through college. Malibu Moon moved up everything he touched.”

Bred and raced by Hughes, Malibu Moon was second on debut before breaking his maiden in his second start going five furlongs on the dirt at Hollywood Park as a 2-year-old for the late trainer Melvin Stute. It would be his only two starts, as Malibu Moon came out of his maiden victory with a significant knee injury that would end his racing career.

Malibu Moon took up stud in 2000 at Country Life Farm in Maryland, where he stood for a modest $3,000 fee and quickly became a smash from his initial crops of offspring to hit the racetrack. Declan's Moon was a member of his second crop, helping ascend Malibu Moon's young stud career to the next level. He moved to Kentucky to stand his first season at the Ryan family's Castleton Lyons in 2004 for a fee of $10,000. That was the same year Hughes purchased Spendthrift Farm.

In late 2007, Malibu Moon was moved to Spendthrift after Hughes had spent the previous few years restoring the farm to be able to stand stallions again. With the continued success of his progeny on the track, Malibu Moon stood his first season at Spendthrift in 2008 for a fee of $40,000. As he continued to reach new heights, his fee would climb to a high of $95,000 in 2014 following Orb's historic Derby triumph the season prior.

Since arriving in Kentucky in 2003, Malibu Moon has been cared for and overseen daily by Wayne Howard, the current Spendthrift stallion manager who was at Castleton Lyons until he and Malibu Moon both moved to Spendthrift.

“Malibu Moon – 'Boo Boo' to me – will be sadly missed by all of us at Spendthrift. Personally, the 18 years I had the pleasure to care and work with Malibu Moon have been a journey I believe we both enjoyed immensely. He was most definitely the boss, I just followed his lead,” said Howard.

Malibu Moon represented genetic royalty. He was the most prolific son of the breed-shaping A.P. Indy, who himself was the most prolific son of the legendary sire and 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. Malibu Moon is the only son of A.P. Indy to sire a Kentucky Derby winner – matching Seattle Slew with one.

Always known for his strong physical stature and good looks, the bay Malibu Moon was out of the Mr. Prospector mare Macoumba, whom Hughes purchased and imported from France following her successful Group 1-winning racing career. Malibu Moon is a half-brother to Parker's Storm Cat – another stallion bred by Hughes – and his half-sister Curriculum is the dam of Spendthrift homebred runner and sire, Temple City.

Malibu Moon was standing stud for his 22nd breeding season in 2021 at a fee of $35,000 at his passing.

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Second Time’s A Charm For De Meric Sales With $625,000 Tapit Filly At Record Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale

The Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Selected 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale is one of the most unforgiving marketplaces on the North American auction calendar, offering windfalls for the flawless specimens in the catalog and relative crickets for the ones that leave even one box unchecked.

Fortunately, the auction's early placement on the calendar offers the horses that didn't jump through every single hoop a chance to regroup and find the right fit at the right price somewhere down the road.

The patience to wait for that second chance paid off for the de Meric Sales operation, which consigned the session-topper during Tuesday's closing session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale, a Tapit filly out of the Grade 1-winning Uncle Mo mare Gomo who brought $625,000 as Hip 492.

Tuesday's trip through the ring was the second during the current juvenile auction season for the Tapit filly. In March, she hammered for $475,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale after breezing an eighth in :10 2/5 seconds, and she was brought home as a buyback.

Tristan de Meric said the filly did a fair bit of growing in the two months since the Gulfstream sale, and she shipped north to Timonium, Md., a different horse.

“Physically, she put more weight on, even since the Miami sale, and she looked even better in company,” de Meric said. “I was really happy to see her develop physically as well as she did since the sale. She got better, bigger, stronger. She even grew an inch. She changed a lot since that sale, and the track here ended up suiting her.”

The filly shaved a fifth of a second off her time over the Maryland State Fairgrounds racing surface during last week's under tack show for the Midlantic sale, covering a furlong in :10 1/5 seconds – just a tick off the overall fastest time for the entire breeze show.

When the hammer fell on Tuesday, the ticket went to the back ring of the pavilion to trainer Mac Robertson, who signed it on behalf of Mike and Vicki McGowan's Xtreme Racing Stables.

“I thought she was the best filly in the sale,” Robertson said between placing bids for the horse immediately following the session-topper. “Mike and Vicki McGowan, are looking for really good fillies. I thought she had the best breeze, and being out of a Grade 1 horse, by a sire that everyone wants, it made sense to me. We went a little more than we wanted, but the sale is strong.”

Even if the filly never runs a step, her page stood out in the catalog as one with instant broodmare potential.

Bred in Florida by Bridlewood Farm, she is the second foal out of Gomo, an Uncle Mo mare who won the Grade 1 Alcibiades Stakes as a juvenile. The page also features several graded/group stakes-producing mares.

While the long-term residual value was appealing, Robertson was more concerned in the moment with taking things one step at a time, and that starts with the racetrack.

“They're looking to win good races,” he said. “If they buy good fillies like that, I think they'll have a good chance.”

The transaction was one of the highlights of what was a record-setting renewal of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale, which set all-time high marks in gross, average, and median sale price.

Over the course of two sessions, a total of 357 horses changed hands for revenues of $33,692,000. The gross surpassed the previous record of $29,374,000 set in 2019.

The average sale price also reached a new high previously set in 2019, finishing on Tuesday at $94,375, after hitting $90,104 two years ago. The new record median of $50,000 bettered the previous mark of $45,000 set in 2015.

The buyback rate for the overall sale was 16 percent, and it was an even more impressive 13 percent during Tuesday's session.

Much like what de Meric said about the placement of Tuesday's session-topping filly, Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales director Paget Bennett said the auction's spot on the later portion of the juvenile sale catalog has made it an increasingly popular target for quality horses, instead of a “last chance” stop at the end of the season.

“So much of it is the consignors just like the sale because of the extra time it gives a lot of these horses,” Bennett said. “A lot of the horses were May babies, so they don't want to push them early, because if they ding them early, they don't have anything, so when they buy horses, a lot of times, they target this sale.”

Even after an all-time edition of the sale, Bennett said she foresaw this week's results spurring on a further evolution of the Midlantic 2-year-old sale catalog, potentially attracting a new group of sellers who might have still held reservations about selling in the marketplace. However, she did not expect the catalog would expand any further than its current size.

“Six hundred (horses) is really what we can stable here, but we're seeing a lot of new consignors,” she said. “It's always nice for people to see other people be successful, and say 'Well, I wasn't sure about that sale earlier, but now I see the results, so perhaps it's something we need to put on our calendar for the future.' We've seen a lot of that, and I think we'll continue to see more.”

To view the auction's full results, click here.

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Whether In Kentucky Or Oklahoma, Winfrey Always At Wolf Creek Farm

Troy Winfrey of Wolf Creek Farm, and the horses he had on offer, took a somewhat unconventional road to the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale.

The 2-year-old consignment sector of the industry is typically rooted in central Florida and South Carolina, with a smattering of local pinhookers around any given regional sale. Winfrey is based in Cynthiana, Ky. The Bluegrass State is known for a lot of things in the Thoroughbred industry, especially on the auction front, but the commercial juvenile market is near the bottom of that list.

Fortunately, Winfrey isn't afraid to travel. His roots are in Texas, where he got his start as a trainer of Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses in the 1990s. He found his specialty on the Quarter Horse side of the aisle, and he achieved a high point in 1994 when Do Ya Disco won the Grade 3 Trinity Meadows Futurity.

When Fasig-Tipton started conducting auctions at Lone Star Park in 1997, Winfrey entered the commercial arena, pinhooking weanlings to yearlings, and yearlings to 2-year-olds. Within a couple years, Winfrey realized if he was going to make a go of being a commercial horseman, he'd have to move to Kentucky.

“We decided we wanted to do more yearlings, weanlings-to-yearlings,” he said. “We were selling horses in Lexington every year anyway, so it was just easier to be centrally located. It's easier to do business there.”

Winfrey bought a farm in Shelbyville, Ky., a small town just east of Louisville, with property on Wolf Creek, giving the farm its name. When he moved back to Chickasha, Okla., in the mid-2000s, he was a long way from Wolf Creek, but he brought the name with him, anyway. Then, when he returned to Kentucky, this time in Cynthiana, northeast of Lexington, the Wolf Creek name stuck again.

The surroundings changed, but Winfrey said the training philosophies never did. Fortunately, his client base didn't change, either.

“It's mainly my own personal horses, and I've had four or five clients that have been partners with me for 20 years,” he said. “They keep me pretty full and pretty busy. They've been with me from the beginning.

“They're older guys, and as long as you keep them in the loop, they're happy,” he continued. “With the new age, everyone is texting, and FaceTiming, and videos, so I see them as much now as I ever did.”

Winfrey said he sells eight to 10 juveniles per year, usually going between the Texas Thoroughbred Association 2-year-olds in training sale and the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale, with potential commercial home runs reserved for the OBS March sale.

Because his clients are based in the Southwest, their horses are occasionally products of their region's breeding program.

Winfrey acknowledged that can make marketing some horses a challenge when offering them in a different regional market like the East Coast, but the timing of the auction calendar and his own sale schedule will sometimes leave no other option.

He ran into that issue at the Midlantic sale, where he offered, Hip 330, a Louisiana-bred El Deal filly. Fortunately, he was able to find a buyer from the Southwest in Terry Gabriel of Pelican State Thoroughbreds, who signed the ticket on the filly for $17,000.

“This filly came to us late,” Winfrey said. “She probably should have gone to Texas, but we missed that one, so she had to come here.”

The Cynthiana farm is reserved for Wolf Creek's yearling contingent, then he leases stalls at a training center in Kentucky to prepare his 2-year-olds. The six horses from the Wolf Creek consignment cataloged in the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic catalog were prepped at the Silver Springs Farm training center in Lexington, Ky.

Through the early hours of the Midlantic sale's second session, Wolf Creek's leader was Hip 146, a Bernardini colt who sold to bloodstock agent Bo Bromagen for $200,000 during Monday's opening day of trade.

The colt breezed an eighth of a mile in :10 1/5 seconds, just a fifth off the fastest overall time of the sale's under-tack show. It was a successful pinhook, after the colt was purchased for $50,000 at last year's Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

After three decades on the move, Winfrey is getting settled in at the Cynthiana incarnation of Wolf Creek Farm. The property is being built up to better grow yearlings for auctions, recently installing a covered six-horse walker, among other capital improvements.

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After Weathering An Early Storm, Kintz Makes Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Debut

Scott Kintz rolled out the debut consignment from his Six K's Training and Sales at just about the worst possible time.

After nearly three decades in the Thoroughbred industry, he hung his own shingle for the first time at the 2020 Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. March 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale – the one that took place while the world started shutting down around it in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a time when there were plenty of questions and very few answers, averages sunk and buyback rates skyrocketed at the March sale. Things didn't get much easier for the rest of the 2-year-old season as schedules shifted, sales were canceled, and several end-users circled their financial wagons as we all tried to figure out how long this thing was going to stick around.

It's been a long 14 months since that initial sale, but Kintz enters another first for his consignment in an entirely different marketplace.

The 2-year-old market is largely back to the record-setting pace it was cruising at in 2019, the COVID-19 vaccine is widely available in the U.S., and Six K's appears in the catalog for the first time at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.

For Kintz, surviving to the point where he can blaze new trails with his consignment was a victory in and of itself. Even if the start of it came in the midst of historically significant times, he wouldn't take it back.

“I couldn't have been happier,” Kintz said about his first year with Six K's. “I'm so glad I did it. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I finally just decided to do it. Yes, it was a terrible time, but I figured if I live through it, I'll just be better for it when it's all said and done, and that's how it's been. I've been very blessed to have clients that have stuck with us and gave us another shot, and we've kind of paid them back by doing better this year. I think we're turning out horses that are happy, sound, and ready to go.”

The Six K's operation may still be in its relative infancy, but Kintz's experience in the industry runs deep.

The Reddick, Fla., resident is a third-generation horseman who worked as a public trainer in Florida and the Midwest for five years, with his biggest success being the Ohio-bred stakes winner Ambridge Augie. He then rooted himself in Kentucky to join the Taylor Made Farm operation, where he spent over a decade as farm manager.

After his time with Taylor Made, he spent five years as the general manager of Woodford Thoroughbreds' Florida wing, then he spent two years as farm manager for Mandy Pope's Whisper Hill Farm.

Kintz formally announced the formation of Six K's Training and Sales in the summer of 2019, starting with the other parts of his business – breaking, layups, rehab, and bloodstock consultancy among them – before he debuted the consignment in the spring of 2020.

More than anything, Kintz said the decision to leave the security of working for someone else and fly his own banner came down to family, on several different levels.

“It was just time,” he said. “My kids were grown and gone, and it was just simpler, and it's an easier time to do it. I've only got one son at home now, and the rest of the kids are on their own and doing their thing.

“My son Nick, who is my assistant, worked for me at Woodford (as yearling manager), and he'd gone and done a couple other things,” Kintz continued. “He was actually at Double Diamond at the time (working as assistant broodmare manager) I'd made the decision. I could tell that was going to be his career, in the horse business, so it just seemed like the right time to go try it. We've been surviving, and that's all you can do.”

Kintz was one-for-one during Monday's opening session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale, selling Hip 123, a New York-bred Tiznow filly out of the Forestry mare Queen Amira, to Myracehorse.com for $120,000.

His consignment is small this year. He's got one more selling during Tuesday's session, a first-crop Gormley colt, but Kintz said he didn't plan on his first trip to the Midlantic sale under his own shingle to be his last.

“Next year, I hope to bring more,” he said. “I entered more than I brought. They just didn't quite get here. Next year, the plan is to bring more up here. I think it's been a really good experience. They get plenty of people out here, and Fasig is always a great company to sell with.”

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